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Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain Job 1:9:
Job 1:6-12
Excerpted from: Satan (Part 1)Maybe these demons are not really all that much afraid of the other good angels, but they are terrified of God. They know that He has ultimate power. So they are restrained considerably, as we will begin to see.
Let us analyze this a bit. First of all, let us notice how evasive his very first answer to God was. "What have you been doing Satan? Where did you come from?" I think it would be good if we thought of him speaking in a flippant voice—taunting, like, "Why do you want to know," kind of thing, because what he says here suggests a vagabond. "Oh, I've just been going to and fro." It suggests a wondering, restless vagabond without roots who is, everywhere he goes, an outsider. And he is. He was cast down to earth, but obviously he still has access to God, at least in some way because he came before God with the other sons of God.
Yet, what did he feel like while he was there? He really did not feel accepted. He felt like an outsider and indeed he was. Think about this, because it has something to do with the way he projects himself on others. There is a great deal to be learned about humanity here because human nature, carnal nature, comes from this being, primarily. He felt like an outsider, like somebody who (in a sense) wanted to be alone.
The next thing I want you to notice is how cynical his next answer was. "Have you considered My servant Job?" God here was in a sense bragging. "Look at this man, how righteous he is." God undoubtedly had something in mind. He understood Satan's mind and he understood Job as well. He was actually creating a situation that Satan just fell right into, but God was about to give Job the test of his life.
We know what it says in I Corinthians 10:13 that God never gives anybody a greater test than He feels that they can endure. Therefore God had absolute confidence in Job that he could defeat Satan even though Job did not know Satan was the one that was doing this! After the second chapter, Satan is never mentioned. He never comes into the story again, but he is used at the beginning to set the stage.
Notice Satan's attitude is cynical. "Well, does Job fear God for nothing? Hey God, he's only obeying you because of what he can get from you." Cynicism, skepticism, doubt. Satan did not think that there could be anybody who was genuinely good. Satan thinks everybody is like he is—cynical.
Satan believes that everybody is playing the angles in order to take advantage to get the best for oneself. Remember what Paul wrote to Titus, in Titus 1:15? "To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure."
Notice what Satan read into this episode with Job: that Job was obedient to God out of selfish motivations. That is what he read into it. Satan plays the angles. He is cunning and deceitful, like no human being we have ever met. He can use flattery like nobody we ever met can use flattery. He can be charming. But he is always using it to see what he can get for himself, because he always reads into the other person that they are just like he is! It is a terrible curse and it destroys relations.
What he is implying here to God is that Job's godliness was artificial. He was implying it had never been tested. He is saying, "God, you've made it too easy for him." He is saying, "God, you bribe him by all of these good things."
The basic questions for the entire book are now set, and that is, is God so good that He can be loved for what He Himself is and not for His gifts and what He can do for us? That is the issue here.
God's faith in Job was justified. Job's loyalty held. He showed that he was not obedient to God just for what God could do for him; he truly loved God for what He is.
Satan may be the chief mischief-maker in the universe, but we have to understand that compared to God he is still very puny. God sets limits and Satan is able to do only what God permits him to do.
We see in verse 12, "He is in your hand, only do … . . .
Job 1:8-11
Excerpted from: Hosea's Prophecy (Part One)This word hedge in verse 6 reminds us of the entirely contrasting, but instructive use, of the same word in the story of Job. The book of Job begins with a description of who Job was, followed immediately by a scene in heaven, in which Satan came with the angels to present himself before God. God initiated a conversation with Satan, which is recorded in Job 1, in which He called his attention to Job.
We know the end of this story, but the last part of this retort is untrue: Job did not curse God, even when his substance was taken away from him, and his sons and daughters were killed. Nevertheless, we notice that the first part was true, and that it contains a great admission. Satan imputed wrong motives to Job: He implied that Job served God only because God protected him. But the true part, the interesting part in view of the story of Hosea, is that God had been protecting Job by setting up a hedge around him—and He did it for Gomer, as He began to protect her, in a sense. He did it for Job in the entirely opposite way. Both were meant to protect.
Satan was admitting that he had been attacking Job, either himself or one of the other fallen angels, but he had been unsuccessful because of the protecting shield that God throws around all who put their trust in Him. Later in the story, God lowers the hedge a bit to allow Satan to touch Job’s property, but not Job himself, to show that Job truly loved God, but not merely for the protection that He had been providing.
However, the point of the story is that God controlled even the level of these temptations and did not allow Job to be tempted more than he was able to bear.
Job 1:8-11
Excerpted from: Facing Times of Stress: When God Is Silent (Part Three)The fifth type of suffering is cosmic suffering. Job is one of the greatest stories in the Bible about suffering. In Job's case, God was demonstrating to Satan and all the evil and faithful angels that a man will worship and serve God for who God is and not merely because God takes care of him and prospers him. Even when we get to the very end of Job's story, we find that the meaning of his suffering has not been completely explained to Job. The only reason we understand it is because at the beginning of the book we are shown a scene in heaven in which God calls Satan's attention to Job.
God permitted Satan to afflict Job and Job comes through triumphantly, though not without a great deal of puzzlement and anguish. And do we not do that in trials? We are constantly wondering why God brought this upon us? Or did He allow it to happen? Or is this just time and chance, or what are we to learn from it, and we go on and on with that puzzlement and anguish.
Job 1:8-11
Excerpted from: Satan and the Holy DaysWe have an Old Testament example now involving Job. He was righteous, of course, and Satan sets out to separate him from God. We see this in Job 1:8-11. And in verse 11 in particular, Satan claims that Job will curse God if everything in his life is taken from him.
ArticlesEcclesiastes and Christian Living (Part Fourteen): A Summary
God's Sovereignty and the Church's Condition (Part One)
Power Belongs to God (Part Two)
Spiritual Blindness (Part One): The God of This World
Bible StudiesBasic Doctrines: Satan's Origin and Destiny
The Model Prayer (Part Eight): Testing and Deliverance
BookletsPreparing the Bride
SermonsJob: Things Left Unsaid
Job and Self-Evaluation (Part One): Job's Character
Trials: Much Needed Experiences
Anticipating the Enemy
Power Belongs to God (Part 2)
Darts
The March Toward Globalism (Part 2)
His Eye is On the Sparrow (Part One)
Leadership and the Covenants (Part Twenty-One)
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